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Abū Zikrī Kohen

Metadata

Gender
Male
Dates
Active dates
1130–1159 CE
Posthumous mentions
1150–3 May 1156 CE
Social roles
  • Jewish community member
  • Merchant
Other names
(Abū Zikrī) Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Kohen al-Sijilmāsī
ابو زكرى بن يوسف الهاروني
Abū Zikrī b. Yūsuf al-Hārūnī al-Tājir

Description / Bio

Representative of the merchants (wakīl al-tujjār) in Fustat in the 1120s and 1130s and an Indian Ocean trader. Originally from Sijilmāsa. Goitein vocalized his kunya Abū Zikrī. But one of the Arabic-script checks that he wrote, ENA NS 83.338, is signed دار الزكر Dār al-Zakar (the name of the establishment he presumably ran), suggesting that his kunya may in fact have been Abū Zakarī, a shortened version of the Arabic Zakariyyā or Greek Ζαχαρίας; the name  (Zakhari) is also attested in Coptic (see Monika Hasitzka, "Namen in koptischen dokumentarischen Texten"). Marina Rustow

Sasha Batz Stern, Alan Elbaum, Athina Pfeiffer, and Marina Rustow, "Abū Zikrī Kohen," available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/people/abu-zikri-kohen/, accessed October 13, 2026.
https://geniza.princeton.edu/people/abu-zikri-kohen/